Roberta Ball’s research while affiliated with New Jersey City University and other places

To ascertain the dimensions of the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II; Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996) in clinically depressed outpatients, exploratory factor analyses were performed with the BDI-II responses of 210 adult (> or =18 years) outpatients who were diagnosed with DSM-IV depressive disorders. Two factors representing Somatic-Affective and Cognitive dimensions were found whose compositions were comparable to those previously reported by Beck, Steer, and Brown (1996) for psychiatric outpatients in general. A subsequent confirmatory factor analysis supported a model in which the BDI-II reflected one underlying second-order dimension of self-reported depression composed of two first-order factors representing cognitive and noncognitive symptoms. The clinical utility of using subscales based on these two latter first-order symptom dimensions was discussed.

To ascertain how effective the Beck Depression Inventory for Primary Care (BDI-PC) was for differentiating medical inpatients who were and were not diagnosed with DSM-IV major depression disorders (MDD), this 7-item self-report instrument composed of cognitive and affective symptoms was administered to 50 medical inpatients along with the Depression subscale (HDS) from the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (Zigmond & Snaith, 1983, Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 67, 361-370). The Mood Module from the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders (Spitzer et al., 1995, Prime-MD instruction manual updated for DSM-IV) was used to diagnose MDD. The internal consistency of the BDI-PC was high (alpha = 0.86), and it was moderately correlated with the HDS (r = 0.62, P < 0.001). The BDI-PC was not significantly correlated with sex, age, ethnicity, or type of medical diagnosis. A BDI-PC cut-off score of 4 and above yielded the maximum clinical efficiency with both 82% sensitivity and specificity rates. The clinical utility of the BDI-PC for identifying medical inpatients who should be evaluated for MDD is discussed.

To provide further information about the construct validity of the Beck Depression Inventory-II the inventory was administered to 210 psychiatric outpatients along with Derogatis' SCL 90-R. As hypothesized, the Beck Depression Inventory-II was more positively correlated with scores on the Depression subscale (r = .89) than it was with scores on the Anxiety subscale of the SCL-90-R (r = .71).

The amended (revised) Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-IA; Beck & Steer, 1993b) and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II; Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996) were self-administered to 140 psychiatric outpatients with various psychiatric disorders. The coefficient alphas of the BDI-IA and the BDI-II were, respectively, .89 and .91. The mean rating for Sadness on the BDI-IA was higher than it was on the BDI-II, but the mean ratings for Past Failure, Self-Dislike, Change in Sleeping Pattern, and Change in Appetite were higher on the BDI-II than they were on the BDI-IA. The mean BDI-II total score was approximately 2 points higher than it was for the BDI-IA, and the outpatients also endorsed approximately one more symptom on the BDI-II than they did on the BDI-IA. The correlations of BDI-IA and BDI-II total scores with sex, ethnicity, age, the diagnosis of a mood disorder, and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (Beck & Steer, 1993a) were within 1 point of each other for the same variables.